Making A Difference in Your Community : LAUSD Aides Find Time to Help Youths

As a volunteer at Mulholland Middle School in Van Nuys, Ruth Witler may not replace a parent or a grandparent, but she sometimes comes close.

“Mrs. Witler, my mother has to work in order to support us,” a girl preparing her salutatorian speech once said to Witler. The child’s mother wouldn’t be able to attend the graduation ceremony, she explained. “I want you to take her place,” the girl added.

“I can’t take her place,” answered Witler, who had tutored the girl in English. “Because you love her very much and I can tell by the way you talk about her.”

But the girl needed someone in the audience to look to so she could focus and get through her memorized speech. Witler accepted the honor.

“It’s things like this that are so important for these children,” said Witler, 73, of Northridge, a retired Hughes Aircraft Co. employee.

Witler is one of 15,000 members of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s School Volunteer Program. Volunteers are used as one-on-one mentors, and also in the Dedicated Older Volunteers in Educational Service (DOVES) program, in which senior citizens serve as tutors, career counselors and role models for students.

“You get more than you give,” said Martin Honig, a Northridge pharmacist who takes time off from his job on Fridays to read to kindergartners and sometimes gives science demonstrations at the Castlebay Lane Elementary School in Porter Ranch. “The bottom line is kids are great.”

Witler, a senior program control administrator at Hughes, felt unsatisfied after retiring in 1985. “I just couldn’t turn my mind off and sit in a chair,” she said.

Instead, she spends her time turning on the minds of students, like one boy who never brought a book or a pencil to class and never did any work.

“He was a very smart young man,” Witler said. “He just would not open up.”

But he was somehow drawn to Witler, and asked his teacher if he could work with her. He was given permission, on the condition that he showed he could be a good student. By working with Witler, he improved so much that by the next semester he was helping another student, quizzing her on their bus ride to school.

Sometimes, the students she tutors may call her “grandma,” if they can’t remember her name, Witler said.

“I love every minute of it,” said Witler, who still is surprised by the impact she has on the children.

The day she returned to school once after a two-week absence following minor surgery, a girl presented her with a plant. The girl had been asking every day when Witler would return.

“I feel as though I would like to help more,” Witler said. “I don’t know how many I actually reach. There are so many children who you can’t reach.”

Volunteers may tutor in art, music, English and math. They can also help with playground supervision, homework, and gardening and painting around the school. Schools especially need bilingual volunteers to tutor Latino students in reading and writing. There is no special training required and anyone of any age can volunteer.

“If there were more people who would get out and help these children one on one we would have less of a problem in the world,” Witler said.

For more information, call Susan Mansion at the School Volunteer Program office at (213) 625-6900.

The Great Spirit Center, a nonprofit charity that recently opened an office in North Hills, is in need of volunteers to help answer the telephone and organize fund-raisers. The center helps those on welfare with job training, guidance through the bureaucratic maze faced by those with little or no income, finding a place to live, making savings and turning their lives around. The center is planning to start computer training sessions for its clients and also needs storage space and donations of food, clothing and furniture. To reach Great Spirit Center founder Christina Ann Princely call (818) 830-9228.

Getting Involved is a weekly listing of volunteering opportunities. Please address prospective listings to Getting Involved, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338.